January 12, 2014

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Tyrone Hayes, star of THE FROG SCIENTIST, recently received the E.O. Wilson Award from the Center for Biological Diversity. The award celebrates Tyrone’s “courageous science and advocacy to protect people and wildlife from pesticides,” says Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center. The award is named after Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, a world-renowned conservationist and ant scientist.

In his speech accepting the award, Tyrone took an unusual approach: he read from his passport. U.S. passports are printed with inspirational quotes from U.S. history, and Tyrone said that while waiting for a bus in Venezuela he noticed this Mohawk Thanksgiving address on one of his passport pages: “We send thanks to all the animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are glad they are still here and we hope it will always be so.”

“If we’re creating a world with no biodiversity, a world where animals can’t live,” Tyrone pointed out, “We’re creating a world we can’t live in.”

Well said, Tyrone. And congratulations!

Photo above: Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, presents the E.O. Wilson Award to Dr. Tyrone Hayes during an event in San Francisco in December 2013. Photo courtesy of the Center for Biological Diversity.

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About Pamela Turner

Pamela S. Turner lives in Oakland, California with her children and her husband. She has a B.A. in social science from UCAL-Irvine and a Master’s of public health from UCAL-Berkeley. She has written numerous books for young readers, including Hachiko and the Scientists in the Field titles Gorilla Doctors: Saving Endangered Great Apes, The Frog Scientist, Project Seahorse, The Dolphins of Shark Bay and her forthcoming work, Crow Smarts. Visit her website at pamelasturner.com.